MOSCOW, July 26. /TASS/. Russian travel agents are ready to send Pokemon catchers on individual trips around the globe.

"Leading European travel agencies already offer special trips, for instance, to the United States, where 142 Pokemon can be caught. Russian companies haven’t received any requests for such trips so far but are ready to use the Pokemon Go craze to send game fans on individual tours," the Association of Russian Tour Companies said in a statement on Monday.

"Travel agencies may use the Pokemon Go craze as an addition to their marketing gimmicks but the hunt after Pokemon is unlikely to become a decisive factor in choosing a vacation destination," the statement says.

The popular game offers an "opportunity to sell interesting individual tours even if their purpose is to hunt for virtual creatures," the statement says.

Pokemon Go is an extensive multiplayer free online game with elements of augmented reality, developed by Niantic for IOS and Android devices. Released in July 2016, the game allows players to capture, train and fight with virtual Pokemon, which can be found in real world locations.

Within a week after its release, Pokemon Go became a hit and boosted capitalization of Japan’s Nintendo, which owns a series of games under the Pokemon brand since 1996, more than 1.5-fold. Though the game has not been officially released in Russia, some users have found a way to gain access to the popular game, for instance, by changing their region to the US on their smartphone settings.